Commercial Television in Indonesia: The Sindhi Element

Abstract

This article sheds light on previously unknown aspects of Indonesian private television by focusing on the role of the ethno-religious minority of Indonesian Sindhi in the establishment and development of commercial soap opera production. Part of the global trading community of Sindhayat, the local Sindhis have mobilized their translocal and transnational networks to take a dominant position in the emerging sector of national media. Grounded in long-term ethnographic fieldwork among media practitioners and Indonesian Sindhi community members, the article examines how Sindhis' sense of community and shared desires and sentiments have resulted in a lack of variety of television formats and the introduction of Islam-themed soap operas to prime-time television.